Russian Rovers on the Moon

An Ignorant American writes "Perusing an Air & Space magazine the other day, I came across an article about Russian Moon Rovers during the space-race era. Thanks to my American science education, I had never heard of this feat. I asked around (friends and coworkers) and nobody else I've talked to has heard of them either. They were called 'lunokhod', and were the first of their kind. Unmanned, remotely operated rovers with basic instrumentation. Two were successfully landed on the Moon, each driving for many miles on the Moon's surface, returning tens of thousands of pictures. You can do a Google Search to start your education, or read what they have to say at Wikipedia on the subject (Wikipedia also has some external links.)"

Comments

Robots had another purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

An interesting fact is that while the Lunokhod robots transmitted more than 20,000 TV pictures and more than 200 TV panoramas and also conducted more than 500 lunar soil tests, their actual purpose was to try and find US made robots and/or buildings(!) on the surface of the moon.

This was done under a program name of "Timofeev". Timofeev is just a common Russian last name and seems to have no special meaning (not referring to a lead scientist/government official, etc).

Re:Robots had another purpose

[Em Ellel]

FYI: "Lunokhod" mean "moonwalker" in russian (They should sue Michael Jackson)

As for name, russian engineering projects are most often named after the lead engineer or location where they are made (common for russian planes and cars, like MiG actually is a shortened version of Mikoyan-Gurevich - names of the design team leads)

Re:Robots had another purpose

[strictnein]

As odd as this may sound, I had an uncle who worked for a military listening station in eastern europe during the cold war. He had made mention to something along those lines at one time. I thought it sounded kind of odd, but it was definitely interesting. Other than talking to him about it, this is the first time I've ever seen/heard it mentioned.

Re:Robots had another purpose

[jarda]

Also interesting is the fact that in Soviet Block, they were shown as a proof that USSR does care about pepole's lifes much more than US does, so rather than risking dnagerous human mission on the moon, they only sent robot, while astronauts stayed safely at home.

Re:Robots had another purpose

[Buran]

The comments about the safety of the crews was pure propaganda and I didn't read it as the opinion of the poster. After Apollo 11 successfully landed, the Soviet lunar program was classified for many years and not publicly acknowledged until the laet 1990s -- little is known among the general public to this day of the giant N-1 booster (Saturn 5-class), the one-man lunar lander, the design elements in the Soyuz spacecraft that are leftovers from the days when Soyuz would have orbited the Moon, the N-1 launch failures, and many, many more elements of the program.

Why?

Because the Soviet leadership did not want to admit that it had failed to beat Project Apollo to a manned landing. So all those things were hidden, and the Soviets claimed that all along, they had focused on staying safely in Earth orbit, building space stations and sending automated probes to the Moon to drive around and send soil samples back (some probes in the Luna series were sample-return spacecraft) rather than letting humans do those things. Never mind that a human can do so much more on-site than he can in a control room a light-second away...

So please, don't tell the guy to shut up -- do a little reading first. The attitude did indeed exist -- but from the Soviet leadership, not someone commenting on an Internet message board decades after the fact.

Re:Robots had another purpose

[Buran]

The reliable Soyuz rocket in use today was designed by Sergei Korolev, who was a brilliant rocket engineer who, like Wernher von Braun, dreamed of building rockets that could send people into space. He died in the mid-1960s, however, so his second-in-command designed the giant N-1 -- and the N-1's first stage had many, many small rockets powering it rather than a smaller number of large ones, as in the Saturn V. It's believed (according to a mid-90s NOVA program on the Soviet manned lunar effort, and other sources) that the sheer complexity of the N-1 was largely to blame for the failures.

How the cosmonauts really felt hasn't been addressed much if at all in any of the books or web sites I've read, nor have any documentaries.

Re:Robots had another purpose

[Black Rabbit]

...as if this was supposed to be some sort of huge secret or something!

I remember visiting the Science and Tech Museum here in Ottawa way back in 1977, the 60th anniversary of the USSR. The Soviets had an exhibition of their space program, including a model Vostok and Sputnik 1, some stuff about the recently completed Apollo/Soyuz joint mission...and a model Lunokhod, which ran on a little track on a grayish moon surface. Most interesting! Somewhere, I still have a brochure or two from it.

So this was hardly any sort of secret, the USSR being very solvent at the time.

Re:Robots had another purpose

[vladkrupin]

After Apollo 11 successfully landed, the Soviet lunar program was classified for many years and not publicly acknowledged until the laet 1990s

A lot of the moon-related exploration stuff was available to public - just visit the space museum in Moscow. Some parts of the exhibitions from the 1980s are, I believe, still there.

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what else american public schools forgot to teach me...

Re:Hmm

[product byproduct]

The metric system?

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, Americans learn the metric system in school, they just don't use it.

Kind of like the French and personal hygiene.

Re:Hmm

[Mr. Piddle]

I wonder what else american public schools forgot to teach me...

Finance for protection from unwise debt.
Scientifically-grounded health and fitness.

Now, Americans are both fat and floating in their own debt.

What's with teaching state history, when teaching the present and future values of a loan is so much much more important towards quenching the blind ambition of college-bound students. It's not like people learn much from history--at least they don't show it (citing all the presidential debates from now until November).

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

theory of evolution?

Re:Hmm

[baryon351]

One I hear repeated often is that the first woman in space was Sally Ride in June 1983. Sadly, this isn't just a US misconception, as it was one I was taught in Australia too.

It completely ignores Valentina Tereshkova, a russian woman who was not only the first woman in space 20 years earlier (almost to the day, in June 1963) but was about the sixth person into space entirely (I may have that position slightly wrong)

Simple Explaination

[Dr. Bent]

I had never heard of this feat. I asked around (friends and coworkers) and nobody else I've talked to has heard of them either.

That's because in Soviet Russia, moon rovers learn about YOU!

Sorry...couldn't resist.

Not just a Google web search

[Anonymous Coward]

Also look at the pictures (images.google.com)

candidly

Pretty successful, until

[AtariAmarok]

They were pretty successful. The last pictures showed something like this on the lunar surface. After this, transmissions were cut off.

What are they teaching in schools today?

[thewiz]

I remember reading about these rovers when I was in GRADE school. Or am I carbon dating myself?

Re:What are they teaching in schools today?

[Spacepup]

I also remember learning about the soviet rovers (and I'm only 25 so I wasn't even around when it happend). I would conjecture that though US public education can use improvement, we learn what we want to learn.

Re:Russia's first space rover

[Frymaster]

Russia's first space "rover"

the most interesting thing about all of this is that they remodeled the rover for earthside use under the brand name lada.

"Thanks to my American Education?"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not going to try and defend the US Education system for it's lack of bias, but I doubt that you learned about any US Mars Rovers in school either - even if they were current events. We have yet to talk about the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in my school... it's a shame really. :/

Wow. Another Russian First

[ahem]

I can't believe that the Russians beat us there. To think that they could have been the first to build a movie set and fake a lunar rover landing! I'm glad we were first to think of putting human actors on the set, though!

Re:Wow. Another Russian First

[ENOENT]

In Soviet Russia, rovers moon YOU!

popular children toy

[kyknos.org]

in czech republic (fromer soviet ally) was a small model lunokchod with remote control. all people in eastern europ know lunokchods. i am surprised it is not known in usa, because american exploration of space was well known in the eastern block.

by th way, Lunochod means Moonwalker

That explained the suspension

[AtariAmarok]

"the most interesting thing about all of this is that they remodeled the rover for earthside use under the brand name lada.

Tested on the moon? This must explain the "bounce 20 feet in the air when you roll over a pebble" suspension.

Ever wonder about the names?

[immel]

I can't believe you've never heard of this (even if you are American). Ever wonder why so many of the features on the dark side of the moon have Russian names? It's the same with many features on Mars, too.

Come On...

[mbone]

These rovers were far from secret - they even carried a joint experiment with the French, a set of retroreflectors for Lunar Laser Ranging, which (together with similar retroreflectors installed by the Apollo astronauts) are still used for a variety of fundamental measurements in celestial dynamics.

I thought american schools were value free

[Anonymous Coward]

In America we tend to forget that we are far from immune from 'evil socializing school.' I remember hearing about flying Russian dogs but never moon rovers. In fact, come to think of it I never knew we landed on the moon more than once until I saw Apollo 13.

It reminds us that our history books stilled talked about manifest destiny in grand terms until the mid 70s and how the genocide of indigenous peoples in our own country was conveniently brushed aside at the same time. Politicians here love to criticize Japanese teachings about WWII, but this is a good reminder that us Americans should temper our supposed superiority from time to time.

Americans are from Mars, Soviets are from Venus

[Chagatai]

The Soviets also were the first ones to land probes on Venus in a series of missions known as Venera. These probes, amazingly, were a part of a mission that lasted over 20 years time, and brought us lots of goodies, including how anyone landing on Venus would encounter a lovely environment where lead melts on the ground and sulphuric acid rains from the sky... kind of like Los Angeles.

Re:Americans are from Mars, Soviets are from Venus

[RainbowSix]

Here's a good link to pictures and info on the Venera missions.

Imagine how much it sucked when, according to the site, two landers had their lens caps stuck, and a third one ejected its lens cap right where its probe arm was supposed to touch the ground!

Re:Americans are from Mars, Soviets are from Venus

[deglr6328]

I cannot help but post a link to this site about the Soviet missions to Veus, it is absoluely amazing and the level of detail about the engineering is incredible. This guy's even gone through the trouble of reprocessing the original data sent from the cameras to produce sharper more accurate images of the surface; fantastic.

Russian-named features on the dark side

[AtariAmarok]

Ever wonder why so many of the features on the dark side of the moon have Russian names? It's the same with many features on Mars, too.

It really is true. I'm in the Western Hemisphere right now, and it is light out. It so happens that many of the features in the northern part of the dark side of the Earth at this time also have Russian names. Imagine that!

We did learn about Lunokhod rovers in school

[Muhammar]

"Thanks to my American science education, I had never heard of this feat."

Don't be sad. Thanks to my soviet-era communist education, I was convinced in my school years that the Apollo maned missions to Moon are just an expenisve imperialist publicity stunt with no real scientific value.

Re:We did learn about Lunokhod rovers in school

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Don't be sad. Thanks to my soviet-era communist education, I was convinced in my school years that the Apollo maned missions to Moon are just an expenisve imperialist publicity stunt with no real scientific value.

And gee, they were almost right...

I'd like the poster to quit his whining.

[Moofie]

I went to American public schools.

I knew that Russians had put rovers on the moon.

School's job is not to tell you everything that's ever happened. School's job is to give you the tools you need to find things out. I got those tools. You did not. The fact that we both got an "American" education is irrelevant.

Quit blaming your ignorance on your teachers. Start paying more attention to what they had to work with.

There's a Russian joke about it

[prostoalex]

When the Soviet Union wad ruled by Leonid Brezhnev, an extremely elderly person not capable of any mental activity furing his late years, there was a joke about Lunokhod and Brezhnev.

Airport in Germany. Soviet and German leaders meet. As the Germans come to the Soviet airplane, Brezhnev comes out, sniffs everyone from the German delegation, picks up some dirt off the ground, puts it in his pocket and returns to the airplane.

Few minutes later a Russian scientist apologizes: "We messed up and instead of Presidential visit program loaded up Lunokhod program".

If you are in Kansas

[wowbagger]

And if you are in Kansas, you can see them st the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.

Re:11 months!

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

sheer dumb luck?

Of course. Everyone knows that only Americans know how to build reliable space vehicles and only Americans deserve to get contracts for software engineering and everyone else in the world is just plain dumb.

Re:Russian schools just as bad!

[gujo-odori]

If you go to Viet Nam, you'll find a lot of people who believe that:

1) The Soviets landed people on the moon;

2) The US moon landings were faked.

They learned it in school. I've even heard that from some of my in-laws there, and I'm far from sure I've convinced them it isn't true. Heck, some Americans even believe 2.

Re:11 months!

[ackthpt]

"Lunokhod 1 actually toured the lunar Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) for 11 months in one of the greatest successes of the Soviet lunar exploration program" I wonder how they managed to get them to hold up (and be potentially useful) for that long? sheer dumb luck?

I remember the whispering propaganda of the 60's and 70's. "The soviets all use crapy electronics", "The soviets rockets all crash or explode", "The soviets are way behind the USA", etc. In reality, time has revealed that whatever their politics, the soviets showed great economy and resourcefullness (at a time many US rockets blew up, too but were less publicized) and succeded in many ways. That their information has been so overlooked rather underscores a propaganda war on the part of the USA (and make no mistake, since the day Kennedy launched the Space Program, there was a huge propaganda onslaught to make US look good, inspite of setbacks and disasters.)

I've never met an astronaut, but have met a cosmonaut, an intelligent and personable fellow, who was mercilessly grilled by a college professor on politics rather than the space programs.

Roverlords

[happyfrogcow]

yep, you guessed it...

I, for one, welcome our new Russian Roverlords.

Re:11 months!

[el-spectre]

No disrespect to the soviet space pros, but I gotta call BS on 2 counts here:

1) On several occasions, launches were made LONG before ready, for political reasons, risking lives (not that this is a soviet only thing)

2) US failures were less publicized? We had rockets blowing up on LIVE TELEVISION, whilst the world found out about russian flights after splashdown 1/2 the time. The failures we only know about (until recently) because we found massive craters from exploded rockets.

The entire space race was an exercise in propaganda, anyway.

It's not just in the USA

[fsmunoz]

While I might not have the educational system of the USA (in a general sense) in the greatest regard (relax, I don't hold my own in high regard) this apparent lack of knowledge is rather general. I remember Lunokhod very well but I was a) very interest in spacial exploration when I was a kid and b) most of the books I had were from the USSR (or from Novosti Press editions in Portugal).

The thing is, most of my classmates were not even interest in the whole subject, so for them Lunokhod or Appolo didn't meant anything. In the USA it's obvious that people have knowledge (or should have, it is after all a great thing to be prouf of) about their own space missions, but beyond that it's really down to curiosity and personal interest.

I would argue that most knowledge of this kind that people have is not directly derived from taking classes at school but it's a result of curiosity and self-reading. And perhaps rightly so.

Some Russian achievements

[B.D.Mills]

If you can see the 1999 BBC-produced series "The Planets", you will find Lunokhod and other aspects of the Russian lunar missions get some coverage in the "Moon" episode, alongside the American space program. Some more facts about the Russian space program that you can find in that series:

• The Russians developed their own manned lunar module, but never got to the stage of launching cosmonauts. The Russian module would have held two cosmonauts. The unmanned tests were not particularly successful because they lost a number of the unmanned modules. The Russians didn't want to launch cosmonauts until they were 100% sure they would come back alive.
  
• The Russians were the first to send an unmanned probe to another world and have it return with samples. The Russians sent sample-return probes to the moon at around the same time as Apollo. One of these sample-return missions was launched a few days before Apollo 11. This particular mission was unsuccessful, with the probe crashing into the moon instead of landing. Although these missions only returned maybe a few kilos of lunar soil, that is enough for chemistry to be done on it.
  
• The Russians and Americans both prepared artificial lunar surfaces. The Americans used dynamite to create artificial craters and prepared an exact model of a small area of the Sea of Tranquillity, whereas the Russians weren't so exacting.
  

You *do* realize

[porkchop_d_clown]

that Mars and the Moon aren't the same place?

Why Lunokhod-2 died after 4 month

[genka]

The rovers were driven in real time, using a very low quality TV- no half-tones, one frame in several seconds. One day they drove Lunokhod-2 into a crater, and had troubles climbing out. The drivers decided to back off a little. Lunokhod-2 had no rear- view camera, and they collided with a rim of the crater. The solar battery was covered in dust, reducing it's output. They try to clean the battery by flipping it, but the dust wouldn't come out, and what would got on a heat radiator surface, which lead to overheating. The drivers got the rover out of the crater, but it didn't wake up after next lunar night. Source (in Russian): http://www.space.hobby.ru/projects/lunochod1.html

Not only that but...

[kaffiene]

The Russians beat the US a very large number of firsts in space. First satellite, first animals in space, first human in space, first safe landings from orbit, first spacewalk, first to the land a probe on Mars, first probe to Venus, first orbital station, first flight around the moon.

The whole notion that the US "won the space race" is an interesting bit of spin. The fact is that the USSR notched up a very large number of firsts and could equally argue that they won the race if the finishing line hadn't been arbitraly decided to be a manned mission to the moon (and you can bet that it wasn't the Russians who decided that that was the only feat which mattered).

The US won the cold war over the USSR, or more to the point, outlasted the USSR, because the USSR ran out of money. Ultimately the Soviet system was a poor means of running a country, so they lost their super power status... but that hardly means they lost the space race.

As Napolean said: history is a lie made up by the victors.

What's the point?

[TWX]

"...so rather than risking dnagerous human mission on the moon, they only sent robot, while astronauts stayed safely at home."

What's the point of exploring space if we don't go there? The Europeans (and unlucky Africans) that settled North and South America didn't send something to report back saying, "Oh, that's nice", they went there. The U.S., Canada, Mexico, and all of Central and South America as they are now is the result. Yes, negative ramifications abounded, but the collective we wouldn't be where we are today if it weren't for those circumstances. Humanity is stronger because we are spread out, and if we actually get the guts to try to go into space permanently we will be stronger still. I'd like to hope that all of the work we do isn't for nothing in the long haul. We're the most versatile living thing to come about in known history. Let's see what we can really do.

The other Slashdot effect

[19usc2462bH]

The Wikipedia page has been slashdotted.

Under a list of protected pages, the Lunokhod program page is listed because page was listed on a /. story 26 minutes ago, has already been vandalized half a dozen times including insertion of goatsex links. Pakaran. 23:06, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Re:The other Slashdot effect

[Jackdaw Rookery]

Am I the only one who thinks this isn't funny?

Are slashdotters the univited people that smell weird and rifle through your stuff at parties?

Behave on other sites.

Re:11 months!

[Axe]

To be fair, the Soviets accomplished large engineering projects because they just didn't give a fuck about quality control, economics, or long-term consequences.

Funny. I now work for an american corporation, and did work closely with NASA. And we indeed give a fuck about quaity control, economics, or long-term consequences. A very long, hard fuck.

But statistics is a stubbron thing. Russian space craft, from boosters to landers do have higher success rate. Go figure.

Re:So do the rest of us.

[flint]

Go read who's real history?

Which author's/publisher's version do you accept as gospel? The one that says slavery? The one that says state's rights? They both have some truth in them.

I was taught in the public schools that Lincoln was trying to preserve the union. Abolishing slavery in the states in rebellion was a carefully considered wartime economic and political move that Jefferson Davis himself considered. Yes, it was hugely symbolic, but that doesn't mean it was *only* symbolic. The preservation of the union was the main thing as at that time in history England and France both had reasons for wanting us divided, weakened, and were really hoping for a divided union for obvious reasons.

I was also taught by my teachers that I would never learn everything in a few hours a day. That the teachers had enough time to cover only very monumental events and that it was the responsibility of ME AND MY PARENTS to make sure that I took the basic tools they gave us in school and go out in the world and read, question, and learn. And, to attempt to synthesize the various slanted historical perspectives before coming to my own conclusions.

Russian rovers! Bah! What monumental historical event should this displace in a curricula that can only cover a finite amount of material?

Stop blaming the system for everything they didn't teach you.

Thank a teacher that you've the wit to get in a flame war here on slashdot!

Don't forget Luna 16 and 15

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget Luna 16 which had a descent and
ascent stage and retrieved a lunar soil sample
which it brought back to Earth in Sept. 1970


Luna 16

Also don't forget Luna 15. Just two hours
before the Apollo 11 Eagle was due to lift
off from the Moon, Luna 15 crash-landed
into the Moon's surface. It's job had been
to robotically retrieve soil samples which
could well have trumped Apollo 11 in doing so
and without risking human lives.

Those old of us to vividly remember the
Apollo 11 landing will also recollect the
drama surrounding Luna 15 right up until the
last moment.

Another one

[Poligraf]

After Americans put men on the Moon, Brezhnev calls for the cosmonauts and tells them:
- In order to win the space race, you will land on the Sun!
- But we'll burn there, Leonid Il'ich!
- Don't worry, the Communist Party's Central Commettee is not stupid! You'll fly there in the night! ;-)

P.S. Anyone can translate the anecdote about Challenger and "zalpy saljuta"?

Your uncle fell for that?

[raehl]

Everybody knows those pictures were just of a sound stage in Siberia.

Newsflash

[CXI]

This just in! Children are not being taugh all of the knowledge contained in the universe in school! When pressed for comment, the school said "Time is finite". We'll be sure to get more info on this conspiracy in the next hour, stay tuned!

Lets be Fair

[DumbSwede]

The submitter's coworkers must all be under the age of 40. The Russian rovers were no secret; I'm 45 and remember a Johnny Carson joke that circulated widely, something to the effect, "boy those Russians will do anything to erase those foot prints"

Deriding the American educational system for not having kids memorize every event in space history is a bit harsh. To be fair there is quite a bit of space history, and this feat while impressive was clearly not as impressive as walking on the moon, and came second. I also doubt there is some dark sinister nationalism at fault, as also seems to be hinted at.

Lets deride the American education system for failing to teach reading and math, not obscure space trivia.

An unused rover is here in the states

[caffiend666]

There is an unused Lunokhod rover here in the states. Here is a color picture I took a few years ago. The rover is/was at the Kansas Cosmosphere. The Cosmosphere is a wonderful place, and well worth making a road trip.

The top of the rover popped open lengthwise to reveal the solar panels. The long nose looking thing on the front was the antenna. There are rumors that these rovers did sample returns even. Havn't seen any proof though.

Interesting tid-bit

[Pig Hogger]

(Of course, European newspapers and rags were plastered end-to-end with Lunokhod articles when it happenned)

Here is an interesting tid-bit: to remotely drive the rovers, the russians selected people who did not have driver licences.

The idea was that they would not have driver's reflexes they would have to unlearn in order to drive a vehicle with a 1 second lag in response thanks to the Earth_Moon gap...